I really fell off the wagon with my photo roundups toward the end of 2011, but my OCD side wouldn't shut up until I finished November and December, so here they are!

November 2011

Some November highlights:

• UAH Hockey
• Really, really good food thanks to Groupon
• Putting together a kit that I LOVED for sale on Scrapbook Update
• Getting a new gas grill (and using it!)
• Tigger, the new little kitty, settled right in with the other cats (and also kept me company while I wrote)
• Setting up my old Wishblade with the new Silhouette software (so that it was no longer a boat anchor)
• Rebooting Project Life (love this!)
• New stoneware pans from The Pampered Chef (it's the little things, really)
• Visiting the Galaxy of Lights at the Botanical Gardens
• Eating great Greek food for Darren's birthday
• Reviewing code at my awesome new job
• Window browsing at Anthro and Bridge Street
• Visiting Mom and Dad for the weekend, including a trip to Archivers and getting to see miss Sophie
• Thanksgiving dinner at home
• Christmas shopping
• Temperatures so warm that the strawberries got confused outside and started blooming
• Finding out that I had a torn achilles and having to wear a walking cast (this wasn't a highlight, really, but it happened)

December 2011

Some December highlights:

• A day trip to IKEA in Atlanta with Mom and Beth (and the massive month-long scrap room overhaul that followed)
• Spiffing up my office at work with furniture purchased on said IKEA trip
• The Star Wars Lego advent calendar
• Decorating for Christmas
• A trip to Chattanooga to visit Rock City and the Tennessee Aquarium
• Jon's birthday
• Surprise nutcracker dolls in the mail from Mom and Dad
• A tiny bit of Christmas crafting (I made a few cards and some ornaments)
• Wrapping gifts
• Darren's grandfather's funeral in Knoxville (the funeral was not a highlight, but being with family members that Darren hadn't seen for more than 10 years was)
• Christmas Eve
• Christmas Day
• Shopping the day after Christmas
• Settling in for a calm week between Christmas and New Year's
• New toe shoes (yes, I adore them!)

And, just for fun, here are the other roundups from 2011, all in one spot.

monthly photo roundup | october 2011

So I guess I'd better get October's photo roundup posted before December gets here, eh? :)

October was also known as The Month When Everything Was Due- there were just a ton of assignments and deadlines, but I got it all done and actually enjoyed it in the process. At the same time, I never want to be that busy again!

Amongst all the "work" (if crafty fun stuff could be called that) there were also some other exciting (and blissfully ordinary) events:

• Spur of the moment trip to Krispy Kreme to get donuts
• Those four huge boxes? They were the "starter" shipments for my Bella Blvd design team work. They totaled 42 pounds!!!
• Obsessing over pumpkin-scented items from Bath and Body Works
• Fall festival at work
• Unintentionally bringing a new kitten home- I really did mean to find him a home, but Tigger ended up coming to live with us instead
• A fun weekend trip to DC (that got scrapped along the way)
• Finishing up the last of my letterpress articles for Scrapbook Update
• Enjoying the rare burst of fall color
• Carving Halloween pumpkins

November has been much, much calmer and more day-to-day. That photo roundup will be coming in the next week or so.

monthly photo roundup | september 2011

Ah, September. Somehow after August's total photo fail, I managed to actually pick up and use my camera during this month!

There was so much going on during these four short weeks!

• Daily life- scrapbook supplies coming in (some unexpectedly), shooting a football game just to get photography practice
• A random photo of Darren resting on the comfy couch at Anthropologie during a trip to Bridge Street
• Lunch out at Macaroni Grill...with a coupon, of course :)
• The Stinson family reunion
• The Tennessee State Fair- I won two first place ribbons in scrapbooking!
• Organizing my buttons in the scrap room while watching Stargate: Atlantis
• Wandering through the Scarecrow Trail at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens
• Some outdoor upgrades including new plants and a fire pit for the back yard
• Dinner out at Cantina Laredo to celebrate my new job (and to also get me over the shock of the end of my last day at my old job)
• A weekend visit from my parents including a trip to Bridge Street
• The arrival of my new MacBook Air- it rocks!
• More fun at the Botanical Gardens with my parents
• Culinary adventures including pretty salads and lots of pesto (from home-grown basil, no less)
• The arrival of Honeycrisp apples
• Starting my new job- they even put out a welcome banner for me!
• Yet more Groupon fun- this time at Tim's Cajun Kitchen

October is crazycakes busy, but I'm attempting to remember to get the camera out to document it all!

monthly photo roundup | august 2011

So, August.

I have no idea what happened, but I didn't take nearly the volume of photos in August that I have in previous months (I may or may not have freaked out a little this morning as I was going through my Lightroom catalog to round these up). Perhaps a combination of taking nearly 2,000 photos at CHA in mid-July, then shooting lots more for Week in the Life at the end of July completely sapped my photo taking groove...but whatever happened, it has to go away!!

From the photos I did take, it looks like all I did was eat and scrapbook for the entire month, which may or may not be true. There was more than one night I was at work in the lab until close to midnight, and there was more than one evening that I arrived home from work at a decent hour only to be completely brain-fried and not feel like doing much of anything except laying on the couch and watching TV.

In between all that, though, I did find photos of a trip to the Botanical Gardens, pictures of Darren hanging a new light fixture in the bedroom as part of a few new upgrades to that space, evidence that I did indeed leave the house at some point to go to Bridge Street and also to eat dinner at Phuket (as evidenced by the photo of Darren's baby octopus sushi), and lots and lots of photos of some cool scrappy arrivals that showed up on my front porch. So not a total loss, eh?

Here's to taking more photos in September...and to trying to simplify things around here.

monthly photo roundup | july 2011

Sooooo much happened in July!! And sooooo much of it isn't even blogged yet! I spent oodles of time going through all my photos from last month just to get enough edited for this month's roundup...but now that the Aruba and CHA photos are all officially done I can finally start to catch up on the backlog!

 

Until then, here are some of the many, many highlights of July 2011:

• Culinary adventures including making our own pesto and pasta at home
• Running the Independence 5K at a personal best of 27:23...and having my cousins run it, too!
• An early Independence Day fireworks viewing with my parents (my hometown always does it on a weekend, even if the 4th is during the week)
• Lots and lots of trips to the Botanical Gardens
• 4th of July at home with more fireworks...at the Space and Rocket Center, no less!
• A trip to the farmers' market, complete with pretty flowers
• Darren's trip to Kenya
• My trip to Chicago for CHA
• Sophie Clare's first birthday party
• More trips to the Botanical Gardens (including a fig-gathering expedition)
• Watching Ferocious Planet, which I never would have even considered had Joe Flanigan not been in it
• Spending a Saturday afternoon watching the last Harry Potter movie and eating sushi and Thai food
• Upgrading the light fixture in the bedroom to a cool IKEA piece that Mom picked up for me when she and Michelle went to Atlanta
• Planting stuff outside
• Lots and lots and lots of time at the gym- BodyPump is majorly good stress relief

I can already tell by the number of photos I've taken so far that August is a much, much calmer month. And, honestly? Calm is good right now.

monthly photo roundup | june 2011

Before I launch into the insanity that was June around here, I wanted to take a minute to point you to two things over at Simple Scrapper. First, the design team page has been updated...yahooo!! And second, check out this post featuring my summer mini album. I'm so happy to be on this team already- it gave me just the push I needed to get that album started!

Okay, on with June. Which was crazy, and insane, but in such a fun way...

Some highlights:

•  Mom's birthday party, and all the fun and preparation entailed.
• Scoring a sweet new camera lens just a couple of miles from a Chipotle.
• A couple of cool Groupon dinners (we are definite Groupon addicts around here).
• Making the Sweet Peach Crop Shop design team.
• A guest spot on the Paperclipping Roundtable (was that really just last month?!?!?).
• More visits to the Botanical Gardens.
• Another trip to visit my family, this time for Father's Day (those photos are coming soon).
• A little organizational (and decorative) update to the scrap room thanks to a trip to Home Goods.
• Super cool new sharp objects- a birthday gift from Beth and Jon.
• A slight obsession with soda logo t-shirts from Target (and I don't even drink soda!).
• Celebrating...get this...my car turning 300,000 miles!! We went out to dinner (Greenbrier BBQ) and everything. 

July has already started off with a bang and is going to be off the hook...with a trip to CHA next week, how could it not be?!?!?

monthly photo roundup | may 2011

May was one of those months where nothing really huge happened (well, after we got our power back). Instead, life consisted of lots of little things (and a lot of catching up) that amounted to a very busy, but very fun and productive time.

May's photo roundup is a collection of happy little things. :) 

Some highlights:

•  Starting the month off without power because of the tornadoes, but getting it back fairly quickly.
• The internet took longer to come back, so I still went to Sam's every day to use their wifi.
• I got Darren hooked on Angry Birds on his Droid.
• Juice's annual concert at Bridge Street. It feels like summer really starts after this event. :)
• My first Chinese takeout. I know!!!
• A week (and a weekend) working in Boston to put in an emergency software fix. We won't discus the comp time fiasco.
• My luggage was destroyed on the way to Boston, so I'm now the proud owner of an indestructible Pelican carry-on, delivered next-day thanks to Amazon Prime.
• Back to shooting football games, just for the fun of it.
• The Crash-Plan backup is finally in place, and I love it!
• Lunches and dinners out thanks to Groupon and Living Social. We're really enjoying these discounts!
• I finally got to talk about the book I'll be in this August!
• Wandering through the Botanical Gardens just so I can play with the camera.
• Running the Cotton Row 5K with my personal best time ever (28:51)!!
• Buying new scrapbook goodies, including a super-awesome mystery box from Sassafras!
• Installing a micro-irrigation system (kind of like Legos for adults) in the flower beds.
• Enjoying all the fruit that's finally in season at Sam's Club.

Here's looking forward to June's roundup!

april 2011

I'm cutting it close on getting April's photo roundup posted before May is over!

Some April highlights:

• My first month on the Counterfeit Kit design team- I'm totally loving being a part of this great group!
• Stuff is blooming everywhere- I especially loved the dogwoods and wisteria this month.
• A few fun, new things came into the house- the Star Wars craft book, lots of new supplies including Studio Calico's Mister Huey mists and a twine collection from The Twinery, and my new gas stove.
• We are serious Groupon people now and use them whenever we can- like when I bought one for Baskin Robbins and we went out for ice cream (something we never do).
• Spending a weekend at Mom and Dad's, then driving up the very next weekend for Beth's birthday party for which Mom made the best salsa ever.
• Car twin photos with my cousin (we both have del Sols).
• Cooking Easter dinner at home.
• The massive tornado outbreak on April 27, and the five subsequent days without power. We spent the time hanging around the house (thank goodness we have a generator), cooking, and working on projects like our Aruba album and a little landscaping.

Here's looking forward to May! Err...June...

March 2011

Ah, March. You were so much better than February. Still incredibly busy, and slightly stressful, but not nearly as bad as the previous month.

Some notable happenings around here:

•  Decorating for St. Patrick's Day (notable because I actually had time to do it!).
• Yet another week spent in Boston for work (and another sinus infection). The upshot? I got to have lunch with the lovely Lain Ehmann! And this fun little thing happened on Paperclipping Roundtable. :)
• The End of Time. No seriously, I watched "The End of Time," David Tennant's last episode as The Doctor in Doctor Who. I almost needed a box of tissues for that one! Also? Timothy Dalton. :)
• Visiting my parents for the weekend and hanging out with miss Sophie Clare.
• Upgrading to a 27" iMac (totally worth it- I'm loving Beastie!!).
• So happy to finally see stuff blooming at home, including my beloved cherry blossoms!
• Photographing sunsets.
• Making the Counterfeit Kit design team.
• Celebrating my birthday with a day off work, sushi for dinner, and the official announcement that I joined Scrapbook Update!
• Organizing closets, my scrap room, stacks of photos, tiny embellishments, and anything else I could get my hands on.

Okay, now bring on April! 

February 2011

Oh, February. You're the reason that I'm behind on my photo roundups. Somehow you were completely sucked away from me by a trip to Boston and a sinus infection. You kinda sucked, except for the Aruba part.

But, still, here you are...

This photo makes it look like all I did was hike, scrap, and eat for the entire month...oh, wait, that was pretty much it!! Well, almost...

• Aruba. Aruba, I love you
• IKEA in Orlando after Aruba. IKEA, I love you, too, but not as much as I love Aruba
• A huge order from Stop and Scrap finally arrived. I tend to pre-order for a month or two, and then I get it all in one big box
• More snow in Huntsville?!??
• More scrappy goodness on clearance
• A two week trip to Boston
• Eating out a lot during the two week trip to Boston
• Scrapping in my hotel room during the two week trip to Boston
• Snow during my two week trip to Boston
• Leaving Boston after two weeks with a sinus infection
• Taking my Scrapbook Update headshot photo, sinus infection notwithstanding (this is one of only a few shots out of 90 in which I don't look stoned)
• Making some cool shamrock art for the house for St. Patrick's Day

 Hopefully March's roundup will be a bit more timely. :)

January 2011

I'm really, really behind on posting my monthly photo roundups this year, but tonight I plan on getting right back on track, starting with January!

January was such a full month! Some of the highlights:

• Finishing up the bedroom reorganization project
• Going to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader (only Narnia, Potter, or Bond can drag me into the theater these days!)
• Lots of bargain shopping for scrapbook supplies
• Darren installing the tankless water heater (I'm so in love with this...is it okay to love an appliance?)
• A snow day off work, ghetto sledding, and snow kayaking
• Pretty flowers on clearance at Kroger
• Super secret scrapbook projects!
• Working on the rental house
• Meeting Dad and J for lunch at Greenbrier BBQ
• Traveling to Aruba!!!

::sigh:: I miss Aruba dearly.